A known seat slide apparatus for a vehicle is disclosed in JP2008-247143A (which will be hereinafter referred to as Reference 1), for example. The seat slide apparatus disclosed in Reference 1 includes a lower rail fixed to a vehicle floor and an upper rail fixed to a vehicle seat and supported by the lower rail so as to be movable relative to the lower rail. The seat slide apparatus also includes a lock member that restricts a relative movement between the lower rail and the upper rail. The restriction of the relative movement between the lower rail and the upper rail by the lock member (i.e., a locked state of the lock member) is released, for example, by an operation of an operation handle by an occupant seated on the aforementioned vehicle seat.
Further, the seat slide apparatus disclosed in Reference 1 includes a memory member that moves on the lower rail in association with the movement of the upper rail during a normal slide operation where the occupant seated on the vehicle seat, for example, releases the lock member (as a result, the lock member is brought to an unlocked state to thereby permit the relative movement between the lower rail and the upper rail) so as to adjust the position of the vehicle seat. The memory member is accommodated within an inner void formed by the lower rail and the upper rail and having a box shape. The memory member is fixed to the lower rail at a time of a walk-in operation where a seat back of the vehicle seat is folded forward so that a passenger gets in or out of a rear seat in the rear of the vehicle seat, for example, and the lock member is released and locked in association with the forward folding operation of the seat back.
After the passenger gets in or out of the rear seat, the upper rail (i.e., the vehicle seat) is moved to an original position where the upper rail again engages with the memory member (i.e., a memory position) and thereafter the seat back is pulled up from the forwardly folded state. Then, the lock member is again brought to the locked state so that the movement of the upper rail relative to the lower rail is restricted.
Specifically, an arrangement range of the memory member is defined so that the memory member is prevented from being exposed to a rear of the vehicle seat, i.e., beyond a rear end of the upper rail even in a case where the memory member is fixed to a rearmost portion of the lower rail at a time when the upper rail moves to a foremost position relative to the lower rail by the walk-in operation.
According to the seat slide apparatus disclosed in Reference 1, the memory member is assembled in view of an assembly process of the lower rail and the upper rail, which may decrease an assembly performance of the memory member. In order to prevent the memory member from being exposed beyond the rear end of the upper rail, the memory member is assembled in a state where the upper rail is moved further forward than the foremost position where the forward movement of the upper rail is structurally stopped. Thereafter, the upper rail is moved rearward so that the memory member is inserted and positioned within the upper rail. That is, after the upper rail and the lower rail are assembled and therefore the forward movement of the upper rail relative to the lower rail is restricted to the foremost position, it may be impossible to assemble the memory member.
A need thus exists for a seat slide apparatus for a vehicle which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.